The invention is particularly illustrated and described herein with reference to the problem of adjusting the height, relative to a support surface such as a floor, of one or more points along a bottom surface of a large appliance such as a dishwasher to achieve leveling of the dishwasher. The invention may find other applications in the leveling or adjusting of the height or other distance of other things relative to a floor or other support surface.
It is generally desirable for large appliances such as dishwashers and the like to be leveled upon installation to assure optimal operation. Generally speaking, in the past such appliances have been provided with one or more adjustable legs located generally adjacent corners thereof for accomplishing this leveling. That is, a given floor or other surface upon which the appliance is to be supported may or may not be in a flat and level condition. As such, it is necessary to provide height adjustment mean at one or more corners of the appliance to achieve a level condition of the appliance.
In the past, one of the more commonly used forms of adjustable legs or feet has been a foot mounted to an upwardly projecting threaded shank which threadably engages a threaded slot formed in an undersurface of the appliance. As such, the appliance must usually be additionally supported by some other means while the adjustable foot is manually accessed for adjusting the extent of projection thereof from the bottom or undersurface of the appliance. In the case of relatively large appliances, this process can be somewhat cumbersome and inconvenient. On the other hand, attempting to raise the level of one corner of the appliance by simply rotating this foot may be quite difficult due to the large amount of weight being brought to bear upon the foot and/or the relatively small space usually provided for access to the foot between the appliance lower surface and the floor or other support surface.
Moreover, the use of such a threaded shank requires that some provision be made in the bottom panel of the appliance for providing an internal thread of sufficient strength to accommodate this threaded shank portion of the adjustable foot while bearing a substantial portion of the weight of the appliance. However, relatively thin stamped metal panels or metal support rails are usually utilized as the undersurfaces of such appliances, such that it can be difficult to form a threaded aperture therethrough adequate for this purpose. For example, such panels lend themselves more readily to simple punching operations rather than to thread forming operations as such.
As an additional matter, such load leveling feet are most commonly provided at a rear corner portion of the appliance, such that if the appliance stands against a wall as is often the case, access to this rear foot for purposes of adjustment for leveling can be somewhat cumbersome and difficult.